


Thinking amongst the stars

by xisuthros



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Heavy Angst, POV Jemma Simmons, Sort of happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 19:36:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4799729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xisuthros/pseuds/xisuthros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A POV of Jemma in the monolith as she is re-watching her memories from her life and realizing some truths. Originally posted on my Tumblr (xisuthros) for the Fitzsimmons week :) Hope you guys like it!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thinking amongst the stars

She couldn’t move.

That was Jemma’s first thought when she awoke inside the monolith. All around her all she could see were shining stars and moving constellations, as if the inside of the alien artifact was some sort of window to the cosmos. When she tried to move, she felt pressure on her legs, like someone was physically holding her legs still so she couldn’t move an inch. Frustrated, she looked around her again at the stars, amazed at how detailed they were and how many new systems were there that no one could see on Earth. Reaching back in her mind, she tried to find the last thing she remembered. Why was she stuck in this monolith?

Suddenly, it all rushed back to her in a torrent of memories. Fitz. Fitz had been asking her out. She had agreed and had just been smiling, planning how the night would end for the both of them when she remembered the glass case bursting open and a black sentient wave engulfing her in its embrace. Jemma remembered her fear, her horror, and her utter heartbreak at her realization in those few seconds that she wouldn’t be able to make dinner with Fitz. 

Choking back a sob, Jemma shed silent tears as she felt her hear break over and over again because of her bad luck. It figured, just as she was about to finally move forward with Fitz, something she had wanted for so long, she got swallowed by a rock. A freaking rock. That last thought made a dark chuckle escape her amongst her tears, realizing how ridiculous all of this would sound to normal people. 

She couldn’t tell time in the monolith, so she had no idea how long she was in there. After spending countless hours (she assumed they were hours) watching the stars and lamenting her bad fortune, her thoughts turned to the team. What would they think when they realized her missing? Since her and Fitz had joined, the small group of agents had become like family to her, and Jemma knew that if anything like this had happened to one of them she would have been devastated. With that thought came the even more terrifying one that they would all take dangerous risks to get her out. She silently and shamefully prayed that they would all just move on without her so as to keep them safe. She could never live with herself if one of her teammates, no family members, got hurt because of her. Her stomach dropping, she thought about how all of them would deal with her loss. 

Coulson would probably be inwardly broken, she thought, but to everyone else he would put forth a strong appearance to keep up moral. She knew that he would stop at nothing to get her back. To her, she viewed him like a second father, and knew that he cared about all of them like they were his children. May, as she knew Coulson would call her about this fiasco, would probably be more outspoken about her emotions. Though she had met the specialist as a stone-cold dangerous agent, Jemma knew that May had really grown emotionally over the past year and would probably be extremely sad at her disappearance. Like Coulson, Jemma viewed her as a second parent; the mother lioness that was fiercely protective of her own.

Skye would be devastated, Jemma knew. She would probably blame herself for getting mixed up in all the alien artifacts and causing the war with the Inhumans that led to them retrieving the monolith. May would probably have to comfort her as she dealt with her own grief as they mourned the loss of a friend. Jemma wished she could hug her friend; they had been through so much together and she knew that Skye would be really sad to let her go. Lincoln would be there to comfort her, and despite him and Jemma not knowing each other very well she had saved his life when they rescued him from HYDRA and she knew that he was always grateful for that. 

Bobbi would be very heartbroken at her disappearance, which made Jemma sad when she considered she was already going through enough with her injuries. Despite their rough past few months with her being a double agent for Gonzales, Jemma knew that the agent had meant well and truly cared for her. The two of them had become unlikely friends because of their time in HYDRA and in the end would have done anything for each other. Hunter would probably be very sad as well at the loss of the biochemist. They never really talked much, but the specialist seemed to know that Bobbi was friends with her, and she supposed that made her okay in his book. Sometimes when the mission load was a little light, she and him would catalogue the lab together, usually because Coulson assigned him some busywork. Jemma had never minded; Hunter would always try to fake-flirt with her in front of Bobbi to get her jealous. His ex-wife would usually just ignore him which often made Jemma laugh. 

Mack would be sad as well, even if they didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye (quite literally, the man was a mountain) when she first got back from being undercover. They had gotten to know each other pretty well during the following months and there were man times the mechanic would come into the lab just to chat. While her trust in him had broken when it was revealed he too was a double agent for Gonzales, she knew that he had protected Fitz from almost certain harm, and for that she was eternally grateful. 

Fitz.

Her heart ached for him when she thought about how her disappearance would break him. Jemma didn’t know the full story about what happened when she went undercover. For some reason, no one wanted to fill her in about Fitz’s condition in the wake of her absence, but she could only tell by their expressions that it was really bad. Jemma’s eyes filled with tears as she realized that he would probably blame himself for her loss, or even worse; he would think she abandoned him again. That last thought was too much for her to bear and she openly sobbed, her heartbroken cries and wails echoing across the vast space that she was entrapped in. All she wanted was to get back to him, to tell him she loved him with all her heart, and that she was never going to leave him again. Unfortunately, it seemed the universe had other plans as it had separated them once again.

Lifting her head, she froze at the scene before her. In place of the stars that had surrounded her miserable thoughts of the past few weeks, she could see her own memories playing out like it was from a projector and she was the audience. Jemma laughed weakly when she saw some memories of her childhood; of birthdays and sleepovers, and her parents when they sent her off to college. She made a silent vow that if she ever got out of the monolith, she would find the time to call them and hear their voices. It had been too long.

Jemma watched with rapt attention as the memories of the Academy filtered in. She sobbed with joy when she saw Fitz’s fresh young face again, his hair messy with curls and looking much younger. Jemma watched all their time together during the Academy and felt her heart ache as she saw all the stolen glances he used to sneak at her, with her oblivious to his feelings. She wished she could go back and do it all over again, to not waste any time like they had done this past year. 

What surprised her was the amount of times she seemed to look at him when he wasn’t looking. The memories seemed to elicit the feelings she was carrying at the time, and she could clearly feel love in her heart when she was with him all those years ago. It was not quite the same love, but there were seeds of the roaring inferno she had in her chest for him now. With a jolt, Jemma realized that she had always been in love with Leo Fitz whether she was conscious of it or not. Through every time they fought, invented something, or worked together to solve a problem she realized that they had been in love with the other since the beginning, which made her sob again with happiness and sorrow. 

Jemma watched as they went through Sci-Ops together, and then onto the Bus and their first field assignment. She laughed as her memories showed the first team all young and naive. Well, except for Coulson and May who had already seen more than their fair share of war. When Ward appeared in the memories, she wanted to turn them off in anger but found that she couldn’t stop them from flowing. She watched as he masterfully played them, sticking his neck out for her when he knew it would earn their trust, protecting Fitz because that is what a good agent would do, and slowly weaving his way into their good fortunes all in an effort to further the agenda of HYDRA. 

When her memories of the pod came up, she watched as Fitz declared his love for her and in that moment she fell in love with him all over again. Jemma suddenly realized how deep her feelings were for him without knowing it during the pod when she dragged him back to the surface. All she could remember was thinking, “No, no, no, no. I will NOT leave him!”. Jemma was forced to then go through his time in the coma, which were without question the worst days of her life. To think that her best friend and (she had realized then) love of her life would not wake up had nearly broke her. Jemma watched again as she saw that Fitz was left damaged by the pod, and how she left him to go undercover in the hopes that he would get better without her around. Now that she could see his face better and knew what became of that decision, Jemma wished she had never left and had instead stayed behind with him like she had desperately wanted to. 

She relived her time at HYDRA and the corresponding time back the base. Her heart broke every time memories of her and Fitz came up, seeing how they were disconnected and nothing like they once were. She could feel the heartache that she had felt every time they spoke at each other with anger, the other not truly grasping what the other was feeling. She recalled her frustration at not being able to connect with him or her kicking herself for being to scared to admit her feelings to him. She watched in horror again as S.H.I.E.L.D. collapsed again, with Bobbi and Mack helping Gonzales to take the base. Jemma remembered how she had reached for Fitz’z hand, trying to convince him that she was not leaving him again without words. She remembered the flutter in her heart when he had grabbed her hand, his rough calluses leaving sparks on her skin when he touched her. 

Jemma watched as they grew closer together those last few weeks, how everyone on the team began to come together and be the real family that she now thought of it as. She watched in horror as Bobbi came in after her torture at Ward’s hand and felt a new wave of contempt for the man. She remembered her fear for Fitz and her desperately trying to find him amidst all the moving agents. When she had finally found him, Jemma’s heart leaped in her chest when she remembered admitting those feelings that she had tried to tell him so many times and smiled when she saw his expression after her admitted them. With a blow to the heart, she remembered as he left to go on the mission and her helplessly turning around and sobbing, unsure if he would make it back to her. 

Lastly, Jemma remembered her joy at his safe return, and at the team’s relatively safe return after the battle with the Inhumans. She recalled checking up on each one of them, treating Coulson and his missing hand while patching up everyone else. She got to watch again as she relived Fitz asking her out and feeling the excited leap in her chest as he looked at her with that adorable expression that suggested he was really, really nervous. With her heart full of love, she had to watch it all slip away as she was swallowed again by the Kree monolith. Panting and tears streaming down her face from the emotions, she stood there, trapped, thinking about what she had just been shown.

Slowly, she realized two simply truths. One, that the team was her family, and she was always going to love them. Jemma knew that they would do everything in their power to bring her back, and that thought filled her with hope. She couldn’t wait to be back with them, facing whatever the world threw at them as a team.   
Second, she realized that her love for Fitz was deeper that anything she had ever felt before. To her, they were so much more than friends, so much more than family, and so much more than lovers. They were Fitzsimmons, and she knew that despite whatever blame he placed on himself, she knew that he would find her and she would be able to soothe that blame away. Her heart beat excitedly as she though about finally being able to go to that dinner, and all the wonderful things after that. 

Jemma found herself praying desperately that she wouldn’t be in the monolith long, that they would find away to get back to her family and the one person who who was so much more than that.


End file.
